Rebirth
by Eva7673
Summary: When 21 year old, agent Clint Barton stumbles into the middle of a war between S.H.E.I.L.D and a Russian, underground organisation, the last thing he expected was to make a call that left him walking away with a certain red-head and more questions than he started with. (Pre-Avengers)
1. I Ran Away In Floods Of Shame

Disclaimer - I do not own the avengers or any of the characters within it. Unfortunately.

Authors note: I'll try to keep this short. I've been considering delving into the author side of fan fiction after many years as an avid reader, and now I am finally ready to post my first, multi-chapter, story. So be gentle with me.

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><p>"We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin." - Andre Berthiaume<p>

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><p>"This last guy though – it was like he didn't even know what was happening." Clint sat, with his feet propped up on the co-pilot's consul, across from Phil, while he spoke, arms waving about to add dramatic effect. "Had his brief case cradled against his chest like a shield while he argued with me – he bloody <em>argued<em> with me Phil – kept saying that he hadn't done anything wrong. That he was just a businessman. And I told him that while arms dealing is technically a '_business_' I didn't think him selling guns to children counted as '_doing nothing wrong'_." Clint chuckled openly, miming quotation marks with growing enthusiasm as the story went on. "Seriously, if he weren't a sadistic warlord, I might have almost felt bad for the guy. He was legitimately shocked that S.H.I.E.L.D had come for him – didn't have any security or nothing. Just stood there with shaking knees throwing money at me. Real money too – had handfuls of it in his pockets. Clearly no one ever told him-"

Phil listened with quiet amusement to Clint's latest recap, typing his own mission report swiftly, and every so often swatting Clint's feet from the consul only to find them returned the second his attention wavered. The man wasn't S.H.I.E.L.D's finest – and most demanded – operative for nothing. In fact, in the three years since Phil had brought Clint into S.H.I.E.L.D, the kid had become nothing short of a legion. Albeit a mostly disliked and widely ostracised legion, but one none the less. His animosity with other agents was mainly due to his dangerous, cold, persona – a by-product of his time as a contract assassin that left majority of the organisation constantly weary of him – but Phil secretly believed that Clint enjoyed the strained relationship. He wasn't the type to become attached, and seemed to hate people becoming attached to him even more.

The thought had Phil's eyes flicking upwards from his computer screen to watch his agent as he continued the apparently 'epic tale' of his latest assignment. Phil couldn't help as his smile grew at the good-natured humour in Clint's eyes, the relaxed set to his shoulders.

Clint Barton was an enigma, there was no doubt about that. An enigma that had seen too much, suffered more than any should, in his few years. But in the time since Phil had brought him to S.H.I.E.L.D Phil had broken through the walls that surrounded his agent. Been allowed close enough to see what Clint refused to expose to others.

And he had never been more glad that he had placed so much blind faith in the kid, because as those walls fell one by one Phil realised that Clint had deserved that faith more than anyone else ever could have.

The kid was broken, torn apart by the cruel hand life had dealt him, but Phil came to see as the years went by – and the duo ended up in more than their fair share of tight spots – that somehow what the kid had witnessed and done hadn't ruined him. Hadn't broken him beyond repair. No, instead Clint had merely retreated within himself. Buried his kind-hearted and devoted nature beneath layers upon layers of self-loathing.

But Phil had found that true nature. He had witnessed the kindness, been on the receiving end of that devotion, and now there was no way he was willing to let that person go. Let him slip away, hidden behind Clint's hatred of himself. Hatred of his past, of the decisions he had made to survive. Phil had finally managed to wrench him from the destructive mindset that had threatened to cripple him when he first came to S.H.I.E.L.D, and Clint had begun trusting him to do so.

A brotherhood had formed between the two of them that Phil doubted he could live without now. Somewhere along the line, between the disastrous missions that had required more trust than Clint knew he had and the moments of silent comradely, Clint had begun to mean more to him than any other agent before. Mean more than anyone else in Phil's entire life. Clint had become his brother in many ways.

His son.

An incredibly rude, sarcastic and often downright infuriating son.

"-Well your recollection of this job seems just about perfect." Phil cut Clint off mid-sentence as he was describing the explosion of the compound with a series of flailing arms and machine gun impressions, "You should have no trouble with the report this time around."

The flailing arms halted immediately before an expression of almost believable sincerity contorted his features. "Oh I don't think so, I was heavily concussed." He said with a shrug. "And a concussed recollected is unreliable. I would never compromise S.H.I.E.L.D like that."

Phil had regrated telling him that particular protocol from day one.

"Concussed?" Phil questioned tonelessly, barely hiding his amusement at the twenty-one year old. Clint's expression remained absolutely heart-broken, as if the idea of not being able to complete his paperwork was nothing short of devastating. "I don't remember you reporting any kind of injury, head related or not?"

"I must have forgotten to mention it." He argued, a grin breaking through that distraught expression, "Concussion's can do that to a person."

"Mhmm." Phil murmured sending his own mission report through to be logged, having already explained that a report that one from Clint would not be accompanying it before the two had even begun bickering. When it came to mission reports Clint could always be counted on to come up with some kind of excuse to spare himself the hassle of writing a single word. Even if said excuse required purposeful bodily harm. Phil had managed, after much frustration and rigorous yelling matches, to persuade the kid from such extremes. Instead now he merely made Clint's excuses up on his own and passed them along. Even Fury had stopped asking for reports from Clint after a disastrous mission in Sao Paulo that Clint had described in his written statement as the result of 'a clusterfuck of shitfaces who wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between their own assholes and the bomb they were attempting to build'.

"We're set to land in ten." Phil said as he begun to pack away his computer.

Clint sighed heavily before heaving himself out of the co-pilot's seat and making a beeline for the back of the quin jet where his equipment lay, strewn across the floor "I'd better go see if I can somehow shove all my shit back into that bag." He said. "Here's hoping we might actually get some downtime after this one, cause if I don't get a chance to wash some of the clothes in here we're going to be able to start selling them off as toxic weapons." He brought a particularly crumpled shirt up to his nose as Phil watched and sniffed it before repelling immediately and shoving it as far down in his rucksack as it would go.

The two of them had barely seen the New York base at all this year, and perhaps even less last year. Clint's position as S.H.I.E.L.D's most valuable asset was certainly a tittle to be proud of, but it did result in him being in almost constant demand. The kid had had only three weeks of rest in the last twelve months, and even that had only come about after he got himself shot in South Africa.

"We have nothing lined up so we might get a few days if we're lucky." Phil said turning his attention back to the descending quin jet while also trying to block out the image of his own sweat-laden belongings.

Yes. Some downtime was definitely needed.

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><p>Clint had never thought of himself as a particularly lucky man.<p>

And today was apparently no exception.

No sooner had he and Phil arrived on base than Fury's second in command was striding towards them on the tarmac – beckoning them over with a stiff flick of her hand.

"You've both been requested in debrief room one," Clint was still unsure as to his opinion of Agent Hill. Her sharpness and completely dedication to S.H.I.E.L.D protocall often left him resenting her as she ordered him about relentlessly, but he couldn't deny that he admired her a little. There were not many people on earth who could demand absolute compliance like Agent Hill. That didn't mean that he didn't attempt random spouts of insubordination just to keep her on her toes, but that was neither here nor there. He respected her ability to scare most agents shitless, even if her detached – and seemingly infinite – orders annoyed him to no end.

"That shouldn't be right." Phil said, ever polite, but firm. "We should have at least three days scheduled downtime. It was approved weeks ago. We've already postponed Clint's bi-annual med-check twice now and after what happened in South Africa he should really have already-"

"-Someone blew away half of the Swedish Consulate in Berlin."

Clint's eyebrows shot up and he exchanged an incredulous look with Phil. This was one of those times that the respect for Hill overcame his resentment. He didn't know if he'd be able to deliver that line with even half of the sass, somehow hidden within the detached professionalism, which she managed in those few words. "You've both been requested in debriefing room one." She repeated before turning and retreating from them swiftly.

Yeah. Luck was so not his thing.

The debriefing room was nothing short of bursting by the time Clint and Phil squeezed through the double doors. It was by far the largest of the debriefing rooms, usually reserved for large team missions, and not somewhere that Clint had spent a lot of time personally.

He was not a 'team' kind of person.

He got the impression however that his aversion to large groups of agents was going to be rigorously ignored on whatever this mission was going to be as tac-teams already stood about the room, briefing packets in the hands, talking to one another and comparing various notes. _Great_, he thought, _just how I wanted to spend the next few days. Trapped on an assignment with scores of agents with something to prove_. And they always had something to prove. Perhaps it was his obvious youth – barely eighteen when he joined the organisation, and only twenty-one now – or his unbeaten score at the training range, but for some unbeknownst reason to Clint whenever he worked with others his missions tended to go more side-ways than usual due to egotistical agents with _something to fucking prove_.

Or perhaps Phil was right.

His inability to trust them in the field led them to rash action.

But that wasn't his fault. He was of the opinion that if they make stupid decisions in the field, they would have made them with or without his presence. And his shunning them only ensured that he wasn't a casualty of those stupid decisions.

Phil hadn't bothered to argue the backwards logic. He had merely rolled his eyes and assured Clint that it was unlikely to become a problem very often as he was to be assigned as a solo-operative nine times out of ten.

This was apparently to become his one out of ten mission for the year.

Clint was dreading it already.

The sight of Fury sweeping into the room pushed his irritation to the back of his mind and within the few short seconds it took the one eyed man to reach the front of the room a silence fell among its entire inhabitants.

"This morning the entire north side of the Swedish Consulate in downtown Berlin was attacked, and eventually destroyed through the use of explosives along with half a street corner. As of now we are unsure which diplomats were the intended targets of the attack – or if it was a focused attack at all." He paused and seemed to take in every agent in the room separately. "The purpose of the attack however, no matter how crucial now, is in the long run irrelevant. This was a Consulate. A protected and incredibly vital aspect of foreign alliance." Again he paused. When he spoke again his voice had lowered and there was an unmistakable threat attached to each word. "There is a reason that terrorist's don't target Consulates." His stare seemed to heat with each word. "Let's remind them of it."

With that the Director swept from the room as swiftly as he had entered it, a trail of agents scurrying along behind him all no doubt speaking over each other as they received more updates on the situation. He paused in the doorway, however, and with undeniable authority beckoned both Phil and Clint to follow him before disappearing. Both did so without hesitation, trailing him all the way to his office doors, hanging back as the scurrying agents continued to speak over each other.

Phil was paying rapt attention to the word's of the agents, trying to piece together as much as he could, while Clint attempted to conceal his sluggish attempts to keep pace with the group. It had been days since he had last slept. Weeks since he had slept all through the night.

Deep down he knew he should have told Phil that the dreams were back, but he just couldn't bring himself to. The man looked just as exhausted as Clint lately.

After a debacle in North Korea a little over eight months ago, one that had resulted in a national incident – which Clint claimed was not _entirely_ his fault – Fury had begun assigning the agent and his handler every mission under the sun. His argument had been that if Clint believed himself to be such a superior agent that he didn't need the tac teams Fury sent in to ensure that national incidents_ didn't_ happen, he could handle half of S.H.I.E.L.D's jobs personally.

When the director had first said it Clint had thought he was joking.

He wasn't.

Now, after eight months of continuous jobs, Clint was almost ready to throw himself at the man's feet and beg for forgiveness. Beg for even one damn night off.

As was the pattern, ever since he was a child, the lack of sleep caused by the continuous missions had brought on a fresh round of nightmares that left Clint awake, shivering and feverish during the early hours of the morning. His days as a contract assassin were memories that had the ability to gut him more painfully than any blade, and while he slept the defences he kept rigidly in place against those memories were gone. He was vulnerable. And every night those dreams damn near ended him.

Yet, he still didn't wake Phil.

He knew he should. That the man would blow a gasket if he found out that Clint had been letting him sleep peacefully through the night while he sat up, head between his knees, fighting for composure. Letting himself stew in the memories that threatened to drown him.

When he had first come to S.H.E.I.L.D they almost had.

After being accosted by agents, after barely eighteen months of being a gun-for-hire, and unceremoniously thrown into one of S.H.E.I.L.D's more notorious prisons, Clint had first met Phil through the iron bars of a cell. A cell that he would have been locked in for a _very_ long time had it not been for his handlers insistence that Clint had the potential to be the best operative the organisation had seen in years.

And while at first he had been cautious of the entire group – and their motives – he soon realized that not only did he have the ability to make up for his past mistakes, but he had also found a place within which he felt he fit perfectly. Or at least, as perfectly as anyone like him ever could. Of course there was animosity with other agents, but Clint had never been the most social of people, and he blatantly ignored most superiors. Well, at least the superiors he didn't outright resent. Those he took satisfaction in tormenting mercilessly.

So perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he fit perfectly in place beside Phil.

In the three years that Clint had been with S.H.E.I.L.D he had found within Phil something that he was sure he lost years ago. A brother.

It had taken time – and some particularly sticky situations – but eventually Clint hadn't been able to keep the man at arms length any longer. He was just too damn insistent.

_Sleep Clint._

_Eat Clint._

_You can't go for a run with a barely stitched together femoral artery Clint. _

It had been downright infuriating to begin with. Clint, who had become self sufficient from the age of seven by necessity, hadn't been able to stand Phil's near constant 'check ins' and help.

When he had finally snapped and told Phil this – well screamed it – Phil hadn't even looked taken aback. Instead it was Clint who was left flabbergasted by his reply.

_It's my job to take care of you Clint._ He had said with more sincerity than Clint had heard in his entire life._ As your handler it's my job to make sure that you're healthy. Make sure that you're safe. _That would have been enough to shut Clint up at the time – but Phil wasn't known for pulling his punches when it came to Clint.

Especially not when Clint questioned the trust that had been forged between them.

_And as your friend, it's my job to make sure that you're happy_.

And dammit the man had more than succeed. These last few years with Phil, working for S.H.E.I.L.D had been the best of his life. He no longer felt lost or without purpose. Here, he was helping people. Making up for the sins of his past and re-building himself to be better. Someone that he might one day be proud to be.

If he could only _sleep_.

He almost ran right into Phil as the group of agents hovered around Fury at the door of his office, all fighting to get in the last word before he turned to face them with a stony expression.

Well as stony as a spy with only one eye could get.

"Monitor the situation closely. If any leads come up I want them documented and fully explored. Agents Coulson and Barton will be needing a jet fuelled and aimed at Berlin as soon as they leave this office, so call through to the hanger." Fury pushed open the door to his office and Phil stepped through immediately, Clint on his heels. Fury followed them in, calling over his shoulder as he did, "Unless something else explodes, I do not want to be disturbed for the next hour. If you have requests or queries take them to Agent Hill."

With that he slammed the door behind him and turned to face the two men.

"This was so not what I wanted to deal with today." He growled, stalking towards his desk and taking a seat behind it.

"Do we have any idea what happened?" Phil began immediately. "I assume it didn't just spontaneously combust."

"Honestly Phil, we've got no goddamn clue." Fury seemed to be caught somewhere between immense frustration and resignation. "No one has taken responsibility for it yet, which is saying something as usually terrorist cells are tripping over each other to get the glory. As of yet not even one group has so much as stuck their heads out of the sand in Berlin, let alone claimed responsibly."

"Maybe it was an accident." Clint commented dryly. He blamed sleep deprivation for his lack of control over his mouth. Though if he was being honest, sleep or no sleep, control over his tongue had never really been something he mastered.

"Oh yes." Fury responded almost immediately in the same, dry, tone. "I'm sure someone _accidently_ set off an explosive within one of the most heavily guarded buildings in Berlin." The phone on his desk began ringing, but he didn't even spare it a glance before he went on. "An explosive, mind you, that took out an entire street block." The phone continued to ring.

"Is that Lenz?"

Fury looked over to Phil – who was staring at the now silent phone – with so much pent up exasperation and annoyance in his one, good eye that Clint was sure it was about to burst from the socket. "It just _had_ to be Germany." With no more explanation than that Fury turned his attention back to Clint. "Look, Barton you're still so high on my shit-list after North Korea that you should be suffering oxygen deficiency, but I need you on this one. The other teams are being sent in as clean up and containment. You two are going hunting. I need a detailed assessment of _whoever_ or _whatever_ was responsible for this." His expression darkened significantly. "And then I need them eliminated. By any means necessary."

The phone began ringing once more and, if possible, the frustration in Fury's voice reached an entirely new level. Faster than Clint had ever seen the man move Fury reached across the table, seized the phone and promptly smashed it back down onto the dock – effectively ending the call.

"Though if 'any means necessary' could avoid any further explosions in downtown Berlin, it would be highly appreciated."

"We'll get it done, sir." Phil assured him, grabbing a hold of Clint's bicep and leading him towards the door before he could say anything more.

"-and you can cut the _sir_ crap, Phil." Fury muttered, still glaring at the phone from his chair.

"Right away sir." Phil smirked closing the door behind himself and Clint, though not before they heard the distinct _crash_ of the phone being shattered and even more muttering.

"Who's Lenz?" Clint asked at once, turning to Phil who was leading to way down to the hanger.

"German Ambassador to S.H.E.I.L.D."

Clint raised an eyebrow. "Why do I get the feeling there is a story behind Fury's reaction to this."

"No story needed." Phil glanced at him as they both boarded the elevator at the end of the hall and pressed the bottom that would take them to the hanger on the ground level. "When you meet him, you'll understand."

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><p>"It's too late." Clint said, sorrow dripping from each word as he stared down at the chaos below him. "There is nothing I can do." He shook his head slowly in resignation, as if trying to process the monstrosity before him. "Not even acid could dissolve the stench now."<p>

He had a fistful of his clothing held up in one hand for Phil to see from his own bunk. They were so badly scrunched and creased that Phil was having a hard time discerning what exactly they were, pants or shirts.

And dear god, the smell.

"Throw them away." Phil demanded, turning back to his own bag. His clothes weren't quite in the state the Clint's were, but it wouldn't be long. Damn. "We'll get some more when we go out, and I'll file for some more S.H.E.I.L.D issue stuff." They had really needed the break he had set up, but because the universe had it out for the kid – or so Clint claimed – and the national disasters seemed to occur just when he and his agent _most_ needed some downtime.

"Great." He heard Clint mutter, heaving his entire rucksack into his arms before dumping its entire contents into the large, stone fireplace between both of their cribs. "_Shopping_."

The Berlin safe house was one of the best in Phil's opinion. With its high ceilings and engraved fire places the apartment was much better than the typical one room shacks that he and Clint had found themselves in over the last eight months.

They had arrived in Berlin barely an hour ago, clearing the base within twenty minutes before setting up here. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long and the two of them could be back on base before the end of the week. There can't be too many terrorist cells that would want to blow up a Swedish Consulate.

He finished pulling out the last of his gear and laying it on the cot before turning back to Clint, about to suggest heading off to the sight to see if they could find anything that might clarifying the situation, but the look on his agent's face stopped him. The kid was staring blindly at the clothes he discarded left in the lit fireplace with a vacant expression from where he sat at the end of his own cot. Anxiety immediately rose up in Phil's chest. Vacant was not a word Phil would have typically used to described Clint's most common expressions, guarded or sarcastic perhaps, but not definitely not vacant. The kid's thoughts were usually too active, so much so that he rarely took a moment to himself. To unwind.

Phil knew why though, even though the answer gnawed at him.

Clint didn't like to dwell on himself. Dwell on his memories.

"Clint?" Phil called from across the room only to receive no response. Dropping his things he moved, slowly. Phil had found that approaching Clint when he was zoned out was very similar to approaching a wild animal. Slowly was always best if you didn't want to startle him and lose a limb. "You alright."  
>His eyes snapped up. It took them longer than Phil would have liked to focus, sweeping around the room warily, before he meet Phil's own. "Yeah. I'm good." Had his voice sounded that bad this morning? "Really." He insisted noticing Phil's raised brow and general worried stance and waving a calming hand. "I'm just tired. Haven't had a second to sit down in the last couple of days."<p>

"If you're not up for this-"

"I am."

"You're _human_ Clint." Phil reminded him gently. It was true. The kid hadn't had an hour to relax in the last week and he was starting to look like he might crash any minute. "You need a break every so often, and you haven't been getting one."

"I'll take a break." He agreed easily, much to Phil's surprise and suspicion. "When we're through here." That sounded more like him, forever putting the mission before himself. As his handler Phil couldn't have asked for more, but as someone who genuinely carded about his well being it tended to frustrate him more. Clint smirked, sensing Phil's displeasure and attempting to lighten the mood. "Sure it's not you who needs the break, old man."

"You watch who you're calling old." Phil chided playfully as Clint rose swiftly and disappeared through the bedroom door, no doubt to collect his gear and head down to the car outside. "Damn kid."

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><p>"Shit. They weren't kidding when they said that it wasn't a <em>small<em> explosion, were they?" Clint had arrived at the scene of the explosion with Phil to find that the explosion had indeed taken out half a street block. Thankfully, as it was the local retail sector of town and the explosion had gone off a little after midnight, there had been no civilian casualties. The buildings surrounding the consulate however, had not been so lucky. 'Rubble' seemed too lenient a term.

Little fires were still burning every few feet, and the north side of the consulate itself had been almost obliterated. Clint was stumbling across what was left of it, keeping a wide birth between himself and the scores of agents that had flooded the scene, sorting through the ashes and bricks. The sun was still yet to rise but the light from small fires combined with the flashing lights of emergency vehicles kept the area well lit.

"Watch where you step." Phil called to him from where he stood with a group of other agents. "Place looks like it might collapse any minute."

"Uh, Phil." Clint called back, smirking as he glanced around the wreckage. "I'm fairly sure that warning's a few hours too late."

Clint could sense the eye-role the comment earned him without even turning around.

"You know what I mean. The _rest_ of it."

"Aye, aye overwatch."

Clint went on, scanning the wreckage for anything that might enlighten him as to what went down, but so far there was nothing. They hadn't even found a single piece of the bomb either, which in itself was strange. Not a single thing out of the ordinary within the rubble.

Sighing he leaped across a particularly large pile of stone before jogging along the rim of another large creator behind it. He was just about to vault over another pile of stones when something silver caught his eye, buried just beneath his feet. Stepping back he lent down to get a better look at it.

It was a brief case.

Kneeling down he attempted to wrench it from the stone that encased it until it came tumbling free several frustrating minutes later, along with the rock formation that had settled on top of it. Stumbling a little he managed to avoid falling into the creator below with the freed rubble, but held onto the brief case firmly. Hoisting it up he set about trying to open it, with little luck, until movement in his from beside him caught his eye.

The first thing he noticed was her hair.

So fiery red that he almost mistook it for the flames just behind her.

She, too, was sorting through the rubble methodically – occasionally reaching down to examine something more closely before throwing it away. Dressed head to toe in black he doubted that he would have noticed her at all if it weren't for her hair.

"Clint!" Phil's voice called over the wreckage, flashlights streaming over the edge of the creator. "You down there?"

Her head snapped up to him, as if she knew exactly where he was, and his eyes met the most startling green pair he had ever seen.

And then she was gone.

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><p>My sincerest apologies for any spelling or grammar errors, I wrote this on my own and don't have a beta so mistakes are inevitable. Feel free to pull me up on them in reviews!<p>

Love it? Hate it? Please let me know! Reviews are what fuel the fire that makes me write so please tell me what you think!

I have the whole story planed so it shouldn't be long between updates.


	2. I'll Never Tell How Close I Came

**CHAPTER 2:**

Disclaimer - I do not own the avengers or any of the characters within it. Unfortunately.

Authors Note: Sorry this took so long. The world was against me. As I said in my last chapter this is my first, multi-chapter, story, so be gentle with me.

Huge thank-you to AustralianRanger012 and Paramoreisaband for reviewing! You guys are awesome, and helped me to get this chapter done as fast as I could!

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><p>"The greatest hazard in life, loosing one's self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all." - Søren Kierkegaard<p>

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><p>"Clint?"<p>

The sudden hand on his shoulder almost had him jumping out of his skin, as it was he flinched so hard that he nearly toppled into the pit beside him, but the hand that clenched around his bicep steadied him.

"Hey, hey. You alright?"

Damn. He must be more exhausted than he thought.

Phil was grasping his arm and staring at him. Worry growing in his eyes the longer Clint remained silent.

"I'm fine." Clint shrugged him off before looking down back into the creator. The woman was nowhere to be seen. He even went as far as to lean over the creator further, scope the remaining ruins more clearly, but he couldn't catch a glint of fiery red hair.

"I thought I saw-" He looked back to Phil and the words died on his lips. Damn he was tired. And Phil could see it. He didn't need to give the man any more reason to think he was loosing it. "Never mind. I found this," he held up the case in his arms, if only to make Phil's gaze drop from his own eyes. "Was buried among the rubble, looks locked though."

"We'll take it back with us. Get someone to pry it open, but it's probably nothing. This was a Consulate. They would have had plenty of important documents in locked cases."

"Yeah. Probably." Clint couldn't help himself, he threw another look around him in search of the woman. He could almost _feel_ her watching him for some reason. And his gut was rarely wrong.

"You sure you saw nothing else?" Damn Phil could read him like a book these days, and the man's concerned eyes made it even harder to lie to him.

Thankfully, he didn't have to try.

"What's going on here? What have you found?"

If it were possible for a voice could ooze bureaucracy and privilege, this one would have been chocking on it. A dumpy man with gelled hair and a suit that Clint was willing to bet cost more than the contents of his rucksack – _before_ it became putrid – came stumbling down the side of the creator to meet them. Other agents, who had finally made their way over, followed the man at a distance.

As he got closer Clint could make out his scrunched face and pink tinge as he spoke. He couldn't tell, however, if that was merely due to the stress of the situation and the dim fire light or if it was merely the man's natural complexion.

The quiet, frustrated sigh that Phil let slip as he turned to face the man wearily was enough to set Clint's teeth on edge. Any man that brought out frustration in _Phil_ was someone he was willing to bet his bow on that he'd dislike.

"Mr Lenz-" Phil began pacifyingly, only to be rudely cut off.

"What is that?" He asked at once, nodding towards the brief case in Clint's hands. "Did you find that here? Is it linked to what happened?"

"Considering we haven't opened it yet, I'm not sure." Phil said.

"If it's documents that belong to the Consulate you have no business opening it. You will have to hand it over to the German Governme-"

"What part of _we haven't opened it_ was difficult part?" Clint asked dryly. "We don't know if it's official documents, terrorist secrets or a Phil's vintage Captain America card set." He pushed the case into Phil's arms, smirking at the frown and matching hint of embarrassment on his handlers face. "Admit it, you keep them in a locked case just like it, don't you?"

Phil ignored him.

"Mr Lenz, until every possible piece of evidence from the scene is examined S.H.E.I.L.D will not be handing over anything. If the case is indeed harmless, Consulate documents, then they willed be returned to the correct party." Clint didn't miss the tightening of the man's – Lenz – face as Phil spoke. He clearly wasn't used to receiving orders.

And it was even clearer how little he enjoyed it.

"Now, if you would please remove yourself from the premises – it is an active crime scene and therefore restricted to only _necessary_ personnel – I will schedule an appointment with you later in the day to discuss where we stand and where S.H.E.I.L.D will head from here-" The man opened his mouth to argue again, growing redder with anger by the second – Clint was beginning to suspect it wasn't the fire's light, just the man's unfortunate complexion – but this time Phil cut him off before he could get a word out. "-Agent Mitchel will escort you out." Phil nodded at a nearby agent who moved forwards and all but dragged Lenz away, copping an earful as he did so.

Clint thought back to Fury's reaction to the continuous phone calls. How the frustration in his eye had almost rivalled the times he argued with Clint, who would openly admit that he could be an annoying little bastard when irritated.

"I get it now." He said, watching Lenz be pulled out off the scene.

"Thought you might."

* * *

><p>"This is Arkady Yozhikov."<p>

Phil stood at the front of the briefing room, pointing to an image of Yozhikov on the large screen behind him as agents flocked about and Clint watched from his perch in the darkest corner of the room. As out of sight as possible in the hopes that if the Berlin superiors couldn't see him they would ask him for _another_ update. It would be the forth one in three hours.

And he hadn't even left the base yet.

Clint had discovered in the last few days that the Berlin S.H.E.I.L.D base was almost identical to the New York base on the inside. A couple of times he had forgotten that he was here at all and started to head for his own room before he remembered.

But all S.H.E.I.L.D bases tended to be like that.

And his vagueness was probably just the result of the sleep deprivation that had only gotten worse since they arrived.

"Footage of him entering the Consulate was discovered late last night, and as he is neither on the fatality list or accounted for, and had no business in the Consulate to begin with, he is now one of our top suspects." Phil continued. "He is – as far as we can prove – a Russian business man with contacts all throughout Europe, but S.H.E.I.L.D has been keeping a close eye on his for some time. Suspicions of his connection with certain Russian syndicates have kept him on our watch lists. Lets find out if he belongs there. I want to know everything about him by the end of the day, and most of all I want to know where he is." Various nods throughout the room met Phil's words. "Dismissed."

After handing out various folders and speaking privately with multiple troop leaders, Phil headed in Clint's direction, eyes scanning the crowd for a hint of him.

"Nice motivational speech." Clint called out quietly just as Phil was about to pass his dark corner by, causing the older man to spin wildly for a moment before his eyes landed on Clint's smirk.

"Damn. I almost didn't see you there."

"I know. Must be a bulb out or something." Clint grinned. "Couldn't help myself."

"Of course not." Phil replied dryly but with an affectionate glance in Clint's direction as the agent scanned the room. Dark corners were just so _Clint_.

Phil too scanned the quickly emptying room before his eyes landed on the image of Yozhikov that was still occupying the large screen. Truth was they still had nothing to go on. Yozhikov was the only puzzle piece even remotely out of place, and to be honest there was a large chance that that was a coincidence. Yozhikov was a shady businessman without a doubt, but he'd never resorted to anything even close to explosives. And that was what was doing Phil's head in.

There was not a single person in, or around, the consulate with a reason to bomb it. Not to mention the security that would have made it close to impossible.

Clint, as he so often did, seemed to read Phil's thoughts. "Something's off with this one." He murmured as they both stared at the image of Yozhikov, and Phil nodded.

They were both silent for a moment, as if by just staring at the small amount of evidence they had managed to gather they might solve whatever it was that was bothering the both of them about the explosion.

Unfortunately, however, several minutes of silence later the only thing they had discovered was a new level of frustration.

"Hunting time?" Clint proposed with one last scowl at the screen.

"Hunting time."

* * *

><p>"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind."<p>

Clint had been perched on his stomach, looking through the scope of his riffle, on the roof of the building across from the bombsite for almost five hours.

And not even the dust had moved.

"I know, but honestly there isn't much else we can do right now." Phil's voice replied through his earpiece, his frustration evident. "The Base is handling Yozhikov, and as of yet we have nothing else."

There was a moment of silence before Clint replied. "Oh, I wouldn't say _nothing_."

"You have something." Phil's tone lost its sluggish edge as eagerness took hold.

"Yeah." Another longer paused followed. "A cramp. Everywhere."

Clint could almost sense the irritated eye-roll despite the 10 miles between them. "Duly noted, Hawkeye." That frustration was back. "Do you have anything to report _about the bombsite_?"

"Nope."

"Wonderful."

"Honestly what are you expecting to find, the bomber stumbling about in the ruins proclaiming his evil-ness? That only happens in movies, Over-watch. Bad ones."

"I'm aware, but right now we have nothing-"

"-Else to go on, yeah, yeah." Clint finished for him with an eye roll of his own. "Does that mean we can swap places for a while, and I can lounge about in the safe-house while you freeze your ass off up here? Even your abysmal marksmanship will be able to handle the dust that _almost_ moved just then." Clint snickered, scratching an itch on the side of his face with the scope of his riffle and flexing his numbing fingers. It just had to be November. Was it too much to ask for terrorists to blow things up, and be mischievous, during the summer months? July or August maybe? Then at least he could enjoy the sunshine while he lay on a rooftop for hours on end staring at dust.

He almost told Phil this before realizing that his handler had never responded to his last jib. Usually the man humoured Clint's bored ramblings for as long as Clint could continue to ramble, answering each playful jab with an appropriate amount of dry sarcasm and insinuated eye rolls.

But he had fallen silent.

"Overwatch?" Clint called into his comm.

There was no reply.

Clint's heart found its way into his throat fasting than he thought possible. He pulled away from the riffle that was leant against the ledge of the roof, facing the ruins of the Consulate across the street, to rest on his toes with one hand against his comm.

"Overwatch?!" He called more urgently, fear beginning to grip him. "Answer me!" He could still hear the _almost_ indistinguishable buzzing sound that the small devices made, meaning that they had not shorted or been broken in any way. Phil was just not answering him. And Phil _always_ answered him.

Unless he couldn't.

"OVERWATCH!" Clint tried one last time, reaching back towards his riffle, ready to dismantle it and run. Run all the way back to the safe house if he had too, but before he could even unscrew the scope from the barrel Phil's voice filled his ears.

"It wasn't Yozhikov."

Clint dropped his head in relief to the concrete roof with a thud, his heart rate returning to normal while adrenaline still coursed through his veins like wildfire.

"_Dammit Overwatch_!"

"-sorry I just had to check something." Phil spoke hastily, and Clint could hear that sound of him rustling through files agitatedly. "And I was right. It wasn't Yozhikov." He repeated.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"I was going through footage of him in the Consulate," Phil began, a new edge to his voice. "Watching him, when I found the footage of him actually entering."

"So? How is that important? We already knew he was inside when he wasn't meant to be?" Clint said, his frustration growing.

"We did, but that's not what's important. It's _how_ he entered-"

"Bloody spit it out, Overwatch!" Clint demanded.

"He was paranoid."

That caught Clint off-guard, and rendered him if possible even more confused. "What?"

"When he came into the Consulate, he was paranoid. He was throwing looks over his shoulder and agitated." Phil explained.

"I'd be paranoid too if I were going to set off a bomb in a consulate." Clint reasoned.

"That's the strange part. There is footage of him at a café not even three blocks away, minutes before he entered the consulate, and he looks completely at ease. Not a care in the world." Phil argued, the rustling continuing in the background. "I think he was being followed. I don't think he was the bomber, I think he was-"

"-the target." Clint finished.

"Exactly."  
>"Strange way to kill someone though?" Clint deliberated, returning somewhat reluctantly to his position on the roof, looking down the range of his scope at the ruins. "Blow up the building they just <em>happen<em> to run into. If it was an assassination, it was a pretty dodgy one. He lived."

There was another pause while the rustling continued at a new level, and Clint could hear Phil muttering to himself, until everything halted and there was silence for a few moments.

"I'm sending you something." Phil said just as Clint's phone buzzed lightly in his recently purchased combat pants. "Yozhikov has a brief case in the footage of him entering the consulate, but he didn't come out of the building with one, and he didn't report one missing. I need to know if it's the same one you found last night?"

"Might be hard to tell," Clint said as he pulled the phone from his pocket. "It looked like a pretty ordinary brief-case to me. Like you said last night, there were probably hundreds of them in the building when it got blown to hell."

"You can't remember anything defining about it?"

"Silver and locked."

"Very useful." The dry sarcasm was back. "Still once we get it opened we should be able to tell if it was his. Consulate files would all be marked with consulate seals, so if it is his-"

"It is his." Clint cut him off, staring at the photo of Yozhikov entering the Consulate on his screen. "That's the brief case."

"What?!" It was Phil's turn to be completely lost. "Are you sure? How can you tell-"

"-there's blood on the corner." And then was. A tiny speck of it that Clint himself had almost missed while examining the photo. "There was dried blood on the case I found too, in exactly the same place. I had just assumed it was from the explosion." And to be honest he had been a little distracted when he first found it. Arrogant diplomats and mysterious redheads taking up too much of his attention. "But if there was blood on it _before_ he got to the consulate then he must have been in a fight before hand."

"And whoever attacked him probably followed him inside." Phil continued, and the sound of vigorous typing could be heard over the comm. "Trouble is there are hundreds of people in that foyer. It could be any of them. I can run all the faces through the data-bank but there's no guarantee that whoever it was is even in the data-bank. And if not then-"

"-Is there a redhead?"

That silenced Phil for a moment. "What?"

"A redhead." Clint repeated eerily calmly. "Woman. About 5'3"." He continued, before adding as an afterthought, "Attractive."

The furious typing continued before Phil's apprehensive voice echoed in his ear. "Yes." He said cautiously. "She came in about two minutes after Yozhikov. How did you-"

"I'm staring at her."

And he was.

There she was again, rumbling through the ruins, just as she had been last night when Clint spotted her. She hadn't even changed her clothes. In fact, Clint realized as he stared at her through his scope, she appeared even _more_ bloody than she had the night before. Still she moved so gracefully and quickly that, if not for her startling hair, Clint's eyes might have missed her altogether. As it was he could barely make her out amongst the rubble. She knew how to hide herself well, but now that he had caught sight of her he managed to follow her progress through the ruins. Watch her stop every now and again before moving on.

She was searching for something.

And Clint had a feeling he knew what it was.

"-HAWKEYE!" Phil was yelling across the comms, his voice taking on the panic that had seized Clint earlier.

"She's looking for something." Clint said hurriedly, still tracking her progress. "And she looks bad, Overwatch. A couple of fights and an explosion victim, bad."

"You think she's looking for the case?"

"If she followed Yozhikov in for it then it would make sense that she would come back for it. Especially if she's just a gun for hire and the case was her prize." Clint reasoned, barely able to keep track of her as she disappeared behind large pieces of rubble, and reappeared in different places faster than he though possible.

"She looks like a gun for hire." He told Phil, unable to keep the admiration from seeping into his voice. "She's good. I can barely keep track of her."

"Finally met your match huh," Phil rubbed playfully, "Someone faster than even your eyes."

"I said _barely_ keep track of her." He defended himself haughtily. "She's not going anywhere, Overwatch."

"Send through a photo," Phil said, the sound of vigorous typing filling the comms once more. "If she's that good chances are she's in the data-bank."

It took a few moments to put the scope into camera mode, and several more waiting for her to reappear from behind a particularly large pile of stone that had once been the lobby before he had his shot. It wasn't going to win him any photography prizes but he did manage to snap a slightly blurred picture of her face as she flitted in and out of his sight again.

"She looks young." Clint commented as he waited for Phil to search the photo and the mystery girl to reappear. "Too young almost. We might be wrong. I doubt she's even my age, though I suppose that doesn't mean anything. I was awesome at before I was even legal so-"

"Get out." The order was as clear as it was sharp.

The banter was done.

He'd found something.

"Why? What is it?" Clint questioned even as he began to disassemble his riffle at record speed. He knew that something seemed off with her. Even watching her from across the street the hair on the back of his neck had prickled nervously, and that had only happened around very few people in his life.

None of them good.

"Don't worry about that now, just get out. I have a tac-team on rout and they're going to take her in. Meet them on Köbisstraße street, just behind we you are." Phil's tactical voice was in full force, and again he wondered who the hell she could be to spark that voice so quickly. Phil, the poster-boy for eerie calmness, almost seemed _nervous_. "Trust me," He went on. "They're going to need you."

He almost replied, having packed away his riffle and started towards the door that would lead inside until the sight of a red-head not even three feet from him rendered him – for the first time in his twenty one years – absolutely speechless.

He had dropped the riffle case and reached for the Desert Eagle tucked into the back of his cargo pants in less than a second, but she was already on him, hand wrapping around his own that was reaching for the gun and twisting it in such a way that he had no choice but to follow it, tumbling to the ground in a front salt, to avoid her snapping the bone into several pieces.

He righted himself immediately, swinging a controlled fist behind him and using the momentum to spin himself to face her, but she dodged him as if he were a fly before swatting him the an open palm hard enough to make him to see stars. At the same time her other hand then went to his throat, colliding with his vocal cords and tacking the breath from him in one swift stroke. With one final twirl she hooked an arm under his shoulder while he fought to take in air and flipped him onto the ledge of the roof so that his legs, and majority of his torso, dangled dangerously over the six hundred foot drop to the concrete sidewalk.

The entire attack took less time than it had taken him to even reach for his gun.

_Jesus_ she was fast.

"_Where is it?_" She demanded in flawless German. "_The case. Where is it?_"

"Don't know what you're talking about, love." He panted with a half-assed grin. He had never been one to take death threats and torture too seriously, much to Phil's constant chagrin. Or at least show he took them seriously. His anti-interrogation technique had always been his sarcasm. "I'm just up here for the view."

Actually, sarcasm and heated glares where about all that made up his social skills.

It probably wasn't a good technique. He found it usually made his captors want to hit him for the mere satisfaction of hitting him, rather than just information gathering.

Still, he hadn't been killed because of it yet, and in his book that meant it was as successful as any other technique.

Though he had a feeling whoever Miss Murderous-Redhead was, might just end that streak with a six hundred foot drop.

Her grip on him slackened, and for a moment he fell.

Slid between her fingers until only his shoulders remained at roof level and the rest of him hung over the edge. Her unbelievably strong hands caught him just as he was about to fall from the roof top altogether – seizing one of his shoulders with one hand and a handful of his hair with another.  
>"I saw you last night." She went on calmly, in perfect English this time. "You had the case. You gave it to the man beside you. Where did he take it?"<p>

"Oh, him." Clint replied lamely, all too aware that he was still slowly slipping through her fingers. "Ugh, who knows? Bit of a wild card he is. Always _gallivanting_ about, with hookers and booze. You know the type. Could be passed out anywhere in the city by now." He choked out 'gallivanting' – Phil and his personal distress word – with perhaps a little too much vigor, but he was suddenly finding it hard to breath and the cement of the roof's edge cut into his shoulders and pushed against his lungs.

"I can hear you Clint," Phil's voice came over the comm quietly, the anxiety in it at a level that Clint hadn't heard in a while. Not even when he got shot. "We're coming for you. Just hang on. I'm almost there. _Don't _engage. Stall her."

That was easier said than done. The woman seemed to be swallowing none of his usual diversion attempts, and he continued to slip through her grasp until the roof's edge was cutting base of his neck and he was staring straight down at the fall below him.

"Last time." She warned evenly. "Or I let you go. Where is it?"

"I _don't_ know."

It wasn't a lie exactly. He had no idea where they had taken it once he handed it over.

He braced himself for his inevitable release. If he could land _just_ right have a chance. There was the smallest of ledges just a floor below him and if he could catch himself on it –

It took a moment before he noticed that he hadn't fallen. She hadn't let go.

But neither did she ask him again.

He inched his head upwards, just enough to catch sight on her face above him and noticed that she was no longer concentrating on him. In fact, her brilliantly green eyes were focus on something beyond the rooftop. Watching it with empty eyes.

Had the tac-team arrived?

_Phil?_

He opened his mouth but before he could even think of something to distract her he was wrenched upwards, back onto the safety of the roof, and dump unceremoniously on its concrete floor.

He didn't even make it to his knees before something cold, and shaped very similarly to the butt of his own Desert Eagle, collided with the side of his skull.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

><p>Phil was sure his heart rate had not yet returned to its normal rhythm.<p>

It had been slamming against his ribs faster than he though possible since he first heard the strange woman's voice over Clint's comm. And almost burst from his chest when he sprinted onto the roof where an unresponsive Clint lay with a pool of blood spreading about his head.

Even now, back in the safe house with Clint patched up, sleeping and within reaching distance he still couldn't quite get his heart to stop thundering.

That had been too close.

The few minutes between discovering who exactly was a mere street away from Clint and bursting onto that roof had been a blur of terror that overshadowed any he had felt before.

_God_, she could have killed him.

The thought had been echoing through his skull since he found Clint. Since he realized that, in fact, she hadn't. Realized that his world hadn't been destroyed then and there.

Because the kid was his world now. He was all Phil had.

Both a brother and a son in every way.

And Phil almost sent him to that rooftop to be slaughtered.

Never once in the time since he had known Clint, trained Clint, had he thought the kid incapable of beating _anyone_. Not one coach. Not one agent. Clint was a prodigy in almost every way, and Phil knew this perhaps more surely than anyone else in the world. But as soon as his search on the redheaded girl proved fruitful his gut had sunk in a way that it never had before. The knowledge that his agent was nothing more than a twenty one year old that had been forced to grow up too quickly hit him with the force of a bulldozer.

He'd known Clint was going to loose.

The sun had set hours ago while Phil pondered over his files, one eye on his work and another on Clint. The medics had assured Phil that the head wound was nothing more than a pretty nasty concussion, but Phil couldn't help himself.

He should have been dead after all. She _should _have killed him. And for the life of him Phil couldn't figure out why she hadn't.

And the nagging question only made his already shot-to-hell nerves worse.

With a sigh he swept his fingers through his tasseled hair for the hundredth time that hour and returned to his file only to throw it away without a thought when a loud groan came from Clint's cot.

"Clint?" He called, kneeling beside the cot, knowing better than to reach out. "Clint? Can you hear me?"

"No." The groggy response triggered a chuckle of relief to escape from Phil's lips as he placed a hand on Clint's shoulder, giving it a gentle shake.

"Come on, I need you to wake up." He ordered calmly.

With several more huffs and an even louder grown Clint's blue eyes emerged from behind their lids and he stared up at Phil – blinking several before he managed to focus on his handler.

"-hat 'appened?" He slurred, struggling to sit up for a moment before Phil reached out and pulled him up gently.

"You don't remember?"

"I remember that I was about to becoming painfully equated with the sidewalk, but after that no." Clint reached up and tentatively touched his left temple only to flinch away when he found the now stitched wound. Phil reached across the grab an ice pack in the med-kit he had left beside the cot and pressing it against Clint's head before he could pull away.

If there was one thing in the world that Clint hated above all others, it was being coddled. And in his mind any kind of medical assistance or routine checkups counted as coddling.

The kid was too self-sufficient for his own good sometimes, outright refusing help from even Phil when he needed it, and usually ending up in a worse state because of it.

Tonight, however, luck was on Phil's side. Clint didn't pull away from the ice pack. Instead he raised a hand so that he could hold it against his skull himself andactually leaned into it.

He was definitely concussed.

"You had a face to face with our newest suspect and lost." Phil explained, moving back to the med-kit in search of some pain relief – already preparing for Clint's inevitable refusal of it and the argument that would incur.

Clint was nodding, although somewhat dizzily. "Pretty redhead." He responded and Phil's brow rose.

"Pretty, huh?"

"Oh, shut up. I'm concussed."

"You sure are," Phil agreed having found the pills and sitting back on the cot, "Take these-" He said, handing them over before continuing at the sight of Clint's annoyance. "No arguments."

For once Clint didn't even bother. His head must really ache.

"So what happened?" Clint went on. "You get her?"

"Nope," Phil sighed. "She clocked you and then took off."

That caused Clint to blink furiously for several more minutes. "She _took off_? Why the hell didn't she just kill me then?"

After hours of asking himself the same question Phil didn't have an answer to give, so he said nothing.

Clint shook his head, confused and more than a little aggravated.

"Who the _hell_ was she, Phil?"

Phil reached across to his own cot to gather up the files that he had been looking over before Clint woke and handed them over.

"Her name is Natalia Romanova." Phil said as Clint struggled to focus his eyes on the page before him.

"Never heard of her." Clint frowned.

"Oh, I doubt that." Phil argued tonelessly, causing Clint to look up from Romanova's small file in confusion. "You don't hear her real name too often, the title moves from girl to girl too quickly. Most people just call her the Black Widow."

"Well. Shit."

* * *

><p>My sincerest apologies for any spelling or grammar errors, I wrote this on my own and don't have a beta so mistakes are inevitable. Feel free to pull me up on them in reviews!<p>

Please, Please tell me what you think! Reviews are so important - they make us better! And I want everyone to enjoy this story as much as I do!


	3. Well You Went Left And I Went Right

Disclaimer - I do not own the avengers or any of the characters within it. Unfortunately.

Authors Note – Updates are going to come much more quickly now as I am on holidays. I will have a chapter up once a week at least. My sincerest apologies for any spelling or grammar errors, I wrote this on my own and don't have a beta so mistakes are inevitable. Feel free to pull me up on them in reviews!

HUGE thank-you to '**Guest**' (you know who you are) – reviews literally leave me giddy all day. I'm glad you like it so far.

Without further adieu Chapter three…

* * *

><p>"Everyone has an identity. One of their own, and one for show." - Jacqueline Susann<p>

* * *

><p>"<em>Shit<em>." Clint repeated, mainly to himself, but his handler nodded slowly in agreement. The two of them sat on Clint's cot for a moment while Clint's concussed brain fought to take in the file in front of him. It took longer than it probably should have, even with his head injury, as his eyelids drooped every few seconds in a way that had nothing to do with his concussion and everything to do with his suddenly unbearable exhaustion.

It was as if the hit to the head had destroyed the last bit of stamina he had in him and now it was all he could do not to face plant into the file. All he wanted was to lie back down and sleep for an eternity – but he couldn't. Not with Phil watching. If he found out how exhausted Clint really was he'd have his head.

And his security clearance.

Clint would be sentenced to surveillance details for months if Phil found out that Clint's dreams had come back with a vengeance and he hadn't told him.

Clint's past as a gun for hire was nothing that Phil was unaware of. In fact it was what had landed him on Phil's radar in the first place, and not something that the man had ever held against Clint. Never judged him for despite how harshly Clint judged himself.

_You were a kid,_ Phil was always remind him – with a compassion that Clint didn't deserve – when Clint spoke of his dreams, _A kid who had seen to much, been put through too much, and you made the only choice that was left for you. You survived. _

But Clint's survival had been at the cost of others.

And lately those others had been plaguing his dreams with such ferocity that he couldn't stand to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time.

When he had first come to S.H.E.I.L.D the nightmares had been so crippling that he had gone weeklong stretches with barely any sleep at all. They had ruled his life for months until he had passed out during one of his training sessions with Phil and woke in the infirmary to find the older man seated in the chair beside his cot.

_Ready to tell me what's on your mind yet?_ Phil had asked just as calmly as he had asked the exact same question dozens of times before. And so Clint had. Later he blamed exhaustion and the drugs they had pumped him full off, but he had come clean to his handler about what he had done. The lives he had taken.

And when he had finished Phil had merely nodded.

_I know_. He had said. _I always knew. There aren't many hit men that use bows nowadays. I pieced together all of your past hits before I even began looking for you. I know how much blood is on your hands. And I accept it. I saw your remorse, how much every life haunts you, the moment we met. _

_I saw the man, not the murderer. _

_And you are a _good_ man Clint Barton. And one day – when you're ready to forgive yourself for your mistakes – you're going to become _great_. _

Clint was still working on the forgiveness part.

Three years later though and he really hadn't made much progress to be quite honest. And in the last few weeks, as the nightmares made themselves at home in his sleep once more, he felt as if all his work to make himself better had been for nothing. Every life he fought to save over the last three years had been for nothing because some nights he felt no better. No more than the worthless killer he was when he first came to S.H.E.I.L.D.

As if nothing he could do might even begin to wipe away the blood that he had spilt.

And on top of all that, he was lying to Phil about it.

As if he didn't feel shit enough about it already.

"I've already called Fury and he's called a meeting with the Council," Phil said, rising from where he sat at the end of Clint's cot and moving back across the room to his own cot and the files strewn across it. "He should be talking to them about now actually-" he glanced down at his watch. "Odds are though that they're going to issue a hit, and as we're the closest team-" His voice faded away suggestively, but Clint knew what Phil hadn't had to say.

It would be him. They'd assign the kill to him.

"You up for this?"

The question caught him off guard and he glanced up to meet Phil's eyes that were suddenly staring down at him too closely for his liking.

"Sure." He said at once. "Why wouldn't I be?"

At first Phil didn't say anything, just continued to stare, but then he shook his head minutely and the smallest of smiles tugged at his lips. "No reason. You just seem a bit off. But if you say you're fine…"

"I am."

Phil was silent for another moment, and Clint's heart shot up into his throat. God, did he know? Clint had purposely been silent while he lay awake at night, equally terrified and ashamed, and unable to sleep. But Phil was, well, _Phil_. He just _knew_ things.

Eventually, though, Phil did reply.

"Okay."

The short, and clearly hesitant, answer didn't help to calm Clint's nerves, but he put them aside for now. He had a job to do, and if Phil were beginning to suspect that he was struggling at it he would have him removed.

And that was _so_ not happening with a Black Widow in the picture.

He opened his mouth to say something, distract Phil in some way and get his mind back on the case, but the older man cut him off.

"Go back to sleep. That concussion still hasn't worn off and it won't for a while. Not much we can do until Fury gets onto the council and we get more orders. Might as well sleep while we can."

Clint tried his best to school his expression, despite the glance Phil sent him at the mention of sleep. For the most part he succeed, nodding convincingly and laying back onto his cot with his back facing Phil – but despite his efforts, as his handler shot him one last look from his own cot, Phil could easily see the tense set of Clint's shoulders and hear the quiet but fast breathing.

And both remained so for the hours that followed.

* * *

><p>Phil woke just in time to see the sun rise while he set about brewing some coffee before he went over every file in the small safe house <em>again<em>. For the life of him he couldn't find anything that connected the Romanov girl to Yozhikov. Not one single scrap of proof that they had ever come anywhere close to one another, let alone met. Not that there was much to go on when it came to Natalia Romanov. The only records they had of her were the occasional photo and alleged assassinations, and even those were hits that had been credited to her due to suspicion alone. If he only put stock in solid facts about her he wouldn't even have her name, even that was unproven.

The only thing he knew about the girl was that she was dangerous.

And he didn't want Clint within a hundred mile radius of her.

He looked over at the archer whose silhouette was clear through the open door of the adjacent room, and couldn't help but grimace.

The kid had tossed and turned for hours while they both attempted to sleep, and even when Phil had finally drifted off and woken hours later the kid had still been as tense as his bow string.

And Phil was furious.

Not just at Clint, for lying to him – and he had too, the shadows under his eyes sold him out – but also at himself. He should have noticed sooner. Should have seen that the kid was exhausted and distracted. Clearly his dreams were back with a vengeance they hadn't had in years, and for some reason Clint had yet to come with him.

Phil would have been lying if he said that didn't hurt a little. He had thought they were past this. That Clint trusted him.

"I thought you went over all of this last night?" Clint's voice broke Phil's line of thought and he looked up to find a sleepy archer in the doorway of the bedroom. He shuffled across the small dining room that was strewn with Phil's files in the direction of the coffee machine and the mug Phil had already filled with an obscene amount of sugar in anticipation of him waking.

"I did, but as I didn't find anything I thought I might as well look through it all again to be sure. Maybe if I wish hard enough some scrap of proof will magically tie everything together."

Clint huffed, amused, while pouring his coffee. "When has life ever been that kind to us?" Phil sighed bleakly at the truth in those words and Clint went on, moving to the seat across from his handler at the small table. "Anything from our red-head over night?"

"Nothing. Wherever she is, she's laying low for now."

"Probably for the best. Don't know if my skull could take another round with her for a couple of days." Clint rubbed his stiches, looking more irritated than pained which reassured Phil. The concussion must have worn off. "Where are the files on her anyway? Might as well get to know what I'm up against." Clint said, looking over his mug at the array of files on the table.

"You're looking at it," Phil nodding towards the thin folder right under Clint's nose.

The agent looked down. "You're joking, right?" He picked up the file and flipped it open to find a small photograph along with only two other, short, pages detailing hits that she was _suspected_ to have had a hand in. "This is _it_? This is all we have? How is that even possible?"

"If you had asked me eight months ago we wouldn't have even had that." Phil said. "Before then there was nothing on her. She was just a face that kept cropping up in Russian intelligence communications."

"So she's KGB?" Clint asked, reading each page carefully.

"No idea. They're not taking responsibility for her – not that we thought they would. All we know is that she's been around for a _long_ time. Longer than you. We're just starting to piece together her past hits but there isn't a lot to go on." Phil said, leaning across the table to rest his elbows in the space between them. "It's strange though. Before March it's like she barely existed at all. A photograph here and there, a name that to be honest is nothing more than a rumour. She didn't leave a single mark in the world at all despite that we're fairly certain she's been in the game for years, and then all of a sudden she materialised into a living, breathing and_ almost track-able_ human being."

"That is weird. Maybe she got tired of being in the shadows?" Clint shrugged. It was the only explanation he could think of.

"Oh, these weren't shadows Clint." Phil argued, his eyes darkening in frustration. "S.H.E.I.L.D sees shadows. She somehow existed completely out of our sight."

"I didn't think that was possible." Clint said, more impressed than anything. "And coming from someone who has tried in the past, that's saying something."

"Yeah, well, she exists now. That's the problem." Phil growled, swallowing the last of his own, long cold, coffee.

"Don't stress. We'll deal with her. No fuss." Clint said, doing his best to seem unconcerned and flippant while taking a large sip of his coffee. "I owe her one now."

"You up for that." Phil asked, blandly, working hard to keep the fire that was quickly igniting in his chest out of his voice.

"Of course I am. I said that yesterday-" Clint began to remind him before he was cut off.

"-this morning actually. Probably seems like a long time ago though, considering you've been awake since." Phil kept his tone as even as possible, bordering on robotic even, but he owed the kid a chance to explain. One last chance to be honest with him.

Clint didn't take it. Instead he froze, mug half way to his lips, and a vein on his forehead throbbing. He just stared at Phil, expression caught between shocked and horrified.

But he said nothing.

"I should have you removed from this assignment-" Phil began, shaking his head slowly. Again he felt like the blame was his own. How could he have let this happen? Let Clint get assigned here when he clearly wasn't up for it. And nearly been killed because of it.

"You can't!" Clint exploded, his expression suddenly becoming much more animated. He leant across the table and stared at Phil imploringly while he spoke. "You know you can't. No one else even has a _chance_ of taking her down, and you know it. You can't take me off this case. I can do it. I can." He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself more than Phil by the end, and that did nothing to reassure the older man.

"How long?" Phil asked quietly. "How long since you've slept-" Clint went to answer immediately but Phil held up a silencing hand and went on,"-properly?"

At that Clint's face fell and his eyes darted down, ashamed, before he answered quietly. "A few weeks."

Phil ran a hand through his hair and over his own tired eyes. "Since Baghdad."

"It's fine Phil," Clint muttered, stripping his face of emotion until he was staring at Phil evenly. "That assignment was just-" He struggled for a moment. "-a little…close to home. "

The kid had been lying awake for weeks and he hadn't noticed. Hadn't done anything. The thought flooded him with guilt, but brought back the hurt he had been feeling before at a whole new level.

"Have I done something?" Phil asked slowly, confused, and a little desperate.

"What?" That seemed to surprise Clint even more than when Phil called him out on his exhaustion. He tilted his head in confusion as he stared across the table at his handler.

"Have I done something wrong?" Phil repeated. "Something that might waver your trust in me?"  
>Realization dawned on Clint's face and a moment later horror replaced it. "God, no, Phil-" He began, but Phil cut him off.<p>

"Then why haven't you come to me?" He asked heatedly, more angry at the situation rather than Clint, but still frustrated that the kid had let things get this far. "You're not alone kid, not anymore. You don't have to carry this on your ow-"

"Yes I do." Clint said with a firmness that took Phil of guard. When Phil looked over at him he found that his eyes had completely closed off. There was no emotion to be found in the blue irises. "I can't afford a crutch, Phil." He continued, anger tinting the words. "And I'm not a kid anymore." He hissed. "I can't just shove all of the memories into the back of my mind and forget about them. What kind of a person would that make me?"

"So you want the nightmares?" Phil asked, uncertain.  
>"What? No. I just-" Clint struggled, trying to find the right words before giving up. "You don't understand." He said finally.<p>

"Then help me." Phil pleaded.

"I don't know how-" Again Clint struggled. "-I can't explain it-" And again he gave up when the words wouldn't come to him. "Just forget about it."

"I can't do that, kid. Especially not-" Clint cut him off.

"_Forget it_." He snapped harshly, standing so quickly that his chair almost toppled over, and stomping back into the small kitchen to refill his mug. "And _stop calling me a 'kid'_."

Phil might have pushed more, tried another tactic, but before he could even begin to strategize a way to understand the mystery that was Clint Barton his phone began to ring. His hand reached for it automatically and with one last glance at Clint answered, forcing his voice to sound calm despite his own churning emotions. Arguing with Clint – really arguing – always left him unsettled, and if the tension in the archers shoulders was a sign than clearly it had the same effect on Clint.

But neither continued to conversation.

"Coulson." Phil said, firmly.

"Phil," John Garret's bombing voice met his ear. "We've found Yozhikov."

"Great. Agent Barton and I are on our way-" He kept his eyes downwards, glaring at the table rather than at Clint who leant tensely against the kitchen cabinets listening to the call.

"Don't bother." Garret cut him off. "He's dead. Has been since yesterday. Murdered."

For the first time that morning Clint's insomnia completely fled his mind. "The Black Widow?" He asked quickly, sorting through his files once more – bringing up the records of her other alleged kills for comparison.

"Can't have been." Garret replied in his typical, easy-going tone – one that, for some reason, had forever frustrated Phil to no end – the sound sirens echoing somewhere in the distance. "Coroner at the scene has put his time of death at around the same time she was hanging your boy off that building. He'd almost made it out of the city too, so there's no way she could have gotten there in time."

Phil sighed heavily and in his peripheral vision he saw Clint slowly moving towards him, his curiosity overcoming his agitation. "So we have another player."

"Looks like."

"If the Black Widow was after the case, then odds are-"

"Third players here for it too." Garret finished. "I hear you Phil, but techs haven't been able to make a dint in it yet. And trust me, I'm motivating them." Phil had no doubt about that. Garret was a slave driver when he wanted to be. "Nothing opens this thing. Techs say they don't even know what the key _is_, so we're dreaming if we think we can force it open."

"Lovely. So we have two assassins, an impregnable brief case and absolutely no idea why they're all connected." Phil's eyes flickered upwards just in time to see Clint's brow rise so high that it was in danger of becoming lost in his actual hair.

"You always get the interesting ones, Phil." Garret chuckled.

"Interesting's one word for it." _Frustrating as hell is another._

"We'll I'm off to Bora Bora to meet up with a rather delightful contact, if I may say so myself. Gorgeous girl who I've been told has the most skilled hands-"

Phil hung up abruptly, before he heard something that he doubted even bleach would remove from his memory, and set his phone down on the table. "Why even bother killing him if he didn't have it?" He asked – mainly himself – as he stared at the files again.

"So we wouldn't know what's in it." Clint answered, standing just across from him while leaning against the table – freshly filled coffee mug in his hands. "It's what I'd do."

"We'll it seems like everyone else knows _but_ us, so you might be right." Phil leant back in his chair and stared openly at Clint, taking in the hunched shoulders and fidgety fingers that were playing with the mug in his hand. "I can't just drop it." He said after several moments and Clint's twitching fingers froze, his eyes still focused intensely on the mug and not Phil. "I just can't. It's not in my nature to be able to sit by while you tear yourself apart from the inside out." Clint's eyes remained glued to the mug, but the subtle flex of his jaw told Phil that he was listening. "But you're right," Phil went on. "You are the only one who can do this. So I won't have you removed from the assignment, but I won't quit trying to understand either. Fixing your scrambled brain box has always been a two man job, and I'm always up for the challenge." Clint's poker face was back as Phil rose, gathered his strewn files and dawned his jacket. "And just for the record," He added, straightening up and looking back at his agent one more time. "You're always going to be a kid to me."

* * *

><p>"-id we get anything else from the coroners report?" Phil was midway through asking as Clint entered the office that had been set up for those involved in the assignment. Troop teams were still filing through every so often, being assigned about the ruins and to run down other leads, and Clint did his very best to stay clear of them. He wasn't the most popular agent on base, and never had been. Other agents had always avoided him, something about his age and past putting them off, but Clint had never minded. He wasn't the social type anyway. His few, close friends on the New York base had always been enough for him. But at the moment he was glad it was just he and Phil amongst all these strangers. It was bad enough that his sour mood and sleepless nights were affecting Phil, without anyone else being brought into the mix.<p>

Phil's words from earlier were still ringing through his head, his handlers determination to understand driving Clint up the walls. It had taken Phil mere seconds to connect the dreams with Clint's recent assignment in Baghdad, despite that for all intensive purposes the assignment had been a complete success.

One hit. It hadn't even taken a day.

The man had been an arms dealer, trading to the worst men imaginable, and Clint had felt nothing but justified in putting a bullet through his skull – but the hit had gone down at a private airport. An airport where Clint had been paid handsomely to execute a hit once before.

Only that hit he could not justify.

The man, he had found out later, had been a lawyer. He had been in Baghdad investigating faulty military equipment supplied by a US corporation that had sold the malfunctioning equipment knowingly. After the man died the case had been dropped.

He had been on a flight back to Boston to see his three kids when Clint gunned him down.

He still hadn't told Phil. He just couldn't bring himself to say the words.

As if sensing his gaze Phil glanced up towards the doorway as the agent he had been speaking too turned back to one of the many computers about the room. "Please tell me you have _something_." Phil said while Clint moved into the room.

"Good looks and charm." Clint answered without a pause, his signature smirk firmly in place. "They haven't failed me yet."

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't rely solely on those." Phil replied just as swiftly.

"Your loss." Clint shrugged. "So nothing on our fiery haired assassin? Or her murderous cohorts?"

"Nothing." Phil said, his frustration returning. "The scene at Yozhikov's murder was clean. And so was the roof top where you had your unfortunate run-in."

"How are they doing this?" Clint shook his head, glancing around the room at the boards upon boards of information – none of it even remotely helpful to them. "Staying one step ahead? Completely out of our sight? I mean this isn't just the Black Widow. It would have taken an entire team to take out Yozhikov and his security."

"Yeah but a team from where?" Phil asked. "Like I said the KGB is still denying everything, and we haven't had a single hit on the records we have of their foreign agents despite that we've cross-checked every camera in the city. It's like they just…"

"…Don't exist." Clint finished, repeating Phil's words from earlier that morning. "Which begs the question, why are we seeing them now?" He turned away from the screens to face Phil again, watching confusion spread across his handler's expression. "What's _so_ important about this briefcase that they're willing to risk catching our attention like this? The case is the key to all this, I'm sure it is, and when we know what's in it we'll finally be able-"

"Yeah, there may be a problem with that."

While Clint was speaking to Phil the doors behind him had opened to reveal a particularly anxious agent who had rushed towards them immediately, cutting Clint off before she had even reached them.

"What do you mean?" Phil's boss voice was at full force.

"The facility where the brief case is being examined is currently being broken into." She said hurriedly, tapping away at the tablet in her hand before showing it to Phil. "This footage was taken less than two minutes ago."

Clint glanced down at the tablet over Phil's shoulder and watched as Natalia Romanova stalked down one of the facilities corridors – taking out the three guards that rushed at her with ease – before the footage went black suddenly.

"What happened?" Phil demanded. "Why did the footage cut-off?"

"She must have disabled the security feed." The agent replied immediately, "The electric locks are reported to have failed as well. She-"

"-Somehow I doubt that she managed to collapse the entire electric system with her legs around a security guard's neck." Clint cut the agent off, before looking across to Phil and continuing. "I think our other, mysterious, team has crashed the party."

"Agreed." Phil nodded, handing the tablet back to the agent while already moving to address the tac-team leaders that were strewn about the office, Clint right beside him and the agent on their heels. "Suit up. I want a team ready to infiltrate in four minutes," He looked across at Clint, "And I want you to go straight for the briefcase, it's the only common denominator so far and I'm not willing to loose it."

"Aye, aye Overwatch."

* * *

><p>"The briefcase was being examined in lab five on the third floor, and as far as we know that door hasn't been tampered with <em>yet<em> so hopefully that means the case is still there."  
>Phil's voice echoed in Clint's ear with all of it's usual precision and clarity as the archer made his way silently along a corridor on the first floor of the facility. There was a familiarity in the situation that left Clint feeling more at home than he had in days. His missions usually consisted of only him and Phil, the older man a constant voice of reason and comfort in his ear while he was out in the field alone. The last few days had been unsettling to say the least. He hadn't worked on a large-scale project in over a year and honestly he didn't miss them. Phil often ridiculed Clint for being too self-sufficient and if he was being honest Clint knew his handler was right, but a lifetime of looking out for himself was not a habit he could break easily. And he didn't particularly want to. Clint did his best work when he was alone, in the shadows, with nothing more than his bow.<p>

And in that moment, with his quiver attached to his back and bow held at his side, he felt more alert than he had in days.

"On it, Overwatch. I'm heading for the north staircase now, ETA two minutes." Clint murmured across the comm, slipping through the door to the staircase silently and starting upwards. He reached the third floor in a matter of seconds and pushed the door to the corridor open a few inches to glance up and down it. Nothing moved in the darkness – the facilities lights having faulted when the security cameras were disabled – and Clint eased himself out into the open space cautiously.

"No sign of the Widow or any other menacing, mystery mercenaries." He reported, keeping his bow arm tensed in case that changed abruptly, "They may not have known whereabouts they were keeping the case – they're probably still searching the first two floors."

"It won't take them long to clear them," Phil replied. "Just get the case and get out – we've still got no visual from the security cameras so where essentially blind out here."

"I'm almost there." Clint reported, spotting a large 5 on a door only a hundred feet down from him.

"And _'menacing, mystery mercenaries'_?" Phil said, and Clint could almost hear the affectionate grin in his voice. "Feeling poetic today are we?"

"I almost added _'murderous'_ to the start but I thought that was a bit much. Didn't want to ruin it."

"Your restraint is noted and appreciated."

"You can't fool me Overwatch," Clint grinned as he reached the lab door and began typing in an assortment of random numbers. "I know how much you love my poetry. Bet you still keep that haiku I gave you for your birthday under your pillow-"

Clint couldn't explain it, there was no sound or a warning, but a sudden tingling sensation made itself known on the back of his neck – had been the entire way alone the corridor – and he had learnt long ago to never ignore it.

He pulled away from the metal lab door instantly – throwing himself to one side – and not a second later a bullet imbedded itself in that door where his torso had been.

He had his bow drawn, arrow notched, before he had even straightened back up. He rose slowly as he stared down the bows length at the figure in front of him, the shadows hiding her face but unable to dull that unmistakable red hair.

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't say it's a pleasure to see you again." He said casually mainly for Phil's sake so that the older man would know he had found the young assassin again.

She didn't dignify the words with a response, instead – keeping her Berretta pistol aimed at his forehead – she raised her empty hand to the metal door and entered in the passcode that Clint had seconds ago been typing. When she finished the keypad flashed red for a moment and the door remained locked.

"You didn't think I'd enter the real password with you watching, did you?" He deadpanned, all humour gone. "I was thinking we might have a chat instead."

"Hawkeye disengage and go for the case." Phil's voice ordered in his ear.

Clint glared at the woman before him, planted firmly in place in front of the door he needed to get through. Call it intuition but he was fairly sure she wasn't going to make it easy for him to get by.

"What's in the case?" He demanded, calculating every possible way around her and not liking the answers he was reaching. He had learnt from last time. He knew better than to engage in a fist fight right off the mark – she had proven that she clearly had the upper hand in that particular field – but his firing range within the corridor was small and he saw no other way to get around her than to physically move her.

That didn't mean he couldn't tip the odds in his favour though.

If he ricochet the arrow from the metal door at the right angle it would catch her thigh at a particularly painful angle and he would have the upper hand when it did come down to blows.

But he never took the shot.

A loud crash and several gunshots from the floor below told Clint that the S.H.I.E.L.D Tac-Teams had found the mysterious troop of mercenaries that had killed Yozhikov but he didn't take his eyes from the red-headed woman in front of him. All she needed was one lapse on his part and he was dead, she was that good – so when it was her who threw a glance down the corridor towards the commotion his confusion had him pausing.

For the first time the impassive mask that she had kept firmly in place both times they had met faulted, and something he had not thought possible passed across her expression.

Fear.

"They're not here with you are they?" Clint asked after a second of tense silence. She didn't fault again. Her eyes – which were once again fixed on him as she kept her Berretta pointed squarely at his forehead – remained empty.

Her jaw, however, tensed – only slightly – but enough.

Enough for Clint to finally put all the pieces together.

"They're here _for_ you." It wasn't a question. Clint knew he was right. It all made sense. Why they continually showed up _after_ her, not with her. Why the Consulate had been blown away with her inside of it.

The sound of gunfire was now echoing in the stairwell only a hundred feet from where they stood, and Clint knew that in a few seconds the corridor was to be a hell of a lot more crowded.

That knowledge had him doing something that he was sure would turn out to be the worst – and possibly last – mistake of his life.

He lowered his bow.

* * *

><p>Please do tell me what you think of it thus far. Too slow? Too fast? Too many Clint and Phil bro-feels? (Is that even possible) And how am I doing depicting our favourite red-headed assassin? Don't worry she is practically a constant from now on in – much to Phil's horror.<p>

Also specially honour will be given to those who can work out the song that the chapter titles come from….

Please review! It means so much to know what you think!


	4. Let The Water Lead Us Home

Disclaimer - I do not own the avengers or any of the characters within it. Unfortunately.

Authors Note – I couldn't leave you in suspense for too long! So here we are the fourth chapter, complete with both action and bro feels (all the good things in life). Again my sincerest apologies for any spelling or grammar errors, I wrote this on my own and don't have a beta so mistakes are inevitable. Feel free to pull me up on them in reviews!

HUGE thank-you to the two '**Guests**' and '**agent Romanoff**' who reviewed, as well as'**Night's Darkstar' **who both reviewed AND got the song right first go, '**Hofherrp' **for your awesome reviews of every chapter so far! And '**AustralianRanger012' **who not only reviewed but was an enormous help to a layman like me who has never written a fan-fiction before and was basically just winging it this far!

* * *

><p>The past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfilment in whatever form. Both are illusions. - Eckhart Tolle<p>

* * *

><p>Her eyes remained fixed coldly on him, but Clint could easily make out the confusion in them – the wariness that settled in her shoulders and had her gripping her Berretta even tighter.<p>

"I can help you." He said, not moving towards her, instead keeping his ground. He only had one shot at this.

"_Hawkeye what the hell are you doing_?" Phil's voice was no longer a comforting murmur in Clint's ear but a booming screech of disbelief that even the Widow could hear despite being at least six feet away.

One of her brows rose questioningly – as if to ask the same thing.

"Look, right now, you and I want the same thing." Clint went on hurriedly, ignoring Phil's vigorous objections, all too aware that they had mere seconds before the firefight in the stairwell found them. "To take down the people who are about to violently interrupt this lovely chat." Her gun still didn't waver from his forehead. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?" He continued more imploringly, all to aware that the gunfire had stopped and footsteps could now be heard climbing the stairs.

For a moment those footsteps were all that could be heard.

"No." She finally answered, her voice clear and strong despite the words being barely more than a murmur. "The enemy of my enemy is just another person in my way."

Without another word she pulled back suddenly, throwing herself into the doorway just behind her – taking cover between the large concrete walls. Without a seconds hesitation Clint did the same just as the stairwell door flew open and a spray of bullets rained down on them both – mussel flashes illuminating the entire corridor.

"_Hawkeye_ _report_. _Now damnit_!" Phil's voice was back and even more demanding than before.

"Currently being shot at, but not shot yet." Clint yelled over the gunshots, leaning around his cover to fire a single, well aimed, arrow that took out the gun toting masked-man nearest to him. "So five by five for now, Overwatch."

After several seconds there was a brief pause in the onslaught of bullets and Clint notched another arrow, ready to let it fly, only to hesitate again when the redhead across from him darted out from her own cover.

Clint had never much understood the idea of a fight being similar to a dance. To him a fistfight was too brutal and sharp to be considered anything even remotely close to a dance. Too desperate and messy.

But watching her – Clint began to change his mind.

She darted out from behind the concrete wall with a lunge that had her in front of the closest gunman in only one step despite her small frame. It gave her enough speed to plant a foot on the man's chest before securing her thighs around his neck and twisting. The sound of his neck snapping replaced the echo of gunfire. She gave him no more notice though. Before she even released the dead man from the grip her thighs had on his throat she had seized the next with her outstretched hands and used her momentum to throw him to the floor with her above him, no doubt shattering his skull – killing him instantly as well.

Clint, too, pulled away from his cover and fired two arrows into the men closest to him before using his bow like a staff to knock another to the ground and render him unconscious. With another arrow notched he couldn't help but glance towards the Widow who had hit the ground at the feet of another masked figure that raised his gun immediately only to have her latch onto his firing arm and rise to her feet, propelling the arm to rise further as well so that when he fired the bullets burrowed themselves into the roof above them. She threw on open palm into his throat – much like she had done to Clint – rendering him unable to breathe for a moment before twisting and pulling him towards her so that his chest was flat against her back. Bullets slammed into his limp body as she took cover behind him. While still holding his arm above both of their heads – effectively keeping him upright – she reached one arm down to his weapons belt and tore it from him. She released him a second later, spinning away from him, and using the belt like a whip to knock the gun from the hand of the man closest to her. Her now spare hand drew her Berretta from its holder at her thigh while she readjusted her grip on the weapons belt – grasping a small device attached to it while the rest of the belt fell to the floor. She threw the device towards the lab door without even a glace while she shot dead the last three men in three successive, and well aimed, bullets.

Clint only had a seconds notice to throw himself to the ground, away from the laboratory door, before the device now attached to it blew it to pieces.

Concrete and other debris was still falling when she leapt over him and darted into the lab through the large crater where the door had been only seconds ago. Ignoring his ringing ears and pulling his now crackling and utterly useless comm from his ear Clint lunged after her, catching her around the waist just inside the lab and pulling them both to the ground heavily with him on top of her, pinning her to the ground with his weight.

He anticipated the elbow that shot up to meet his face and dodged it sharply. What he didn't anticipate was her other hand seizing a hand full of his hair and wrenching forwards so that he had no choice but to follow or be scalped. She flipped him easily over her shoulder before following him in a graceful front sault that brought her to her feet while he was still kneeling in front of her. He used his bow to deflect the fist she threw down at him and then seized her roughly and practically threw her into a nearby storage compartment – its glass doors shattering upon impact. She didn't so much as wince or stumble. The glass hadn't even hit the floor before she was on him again.

He rose to his feet in one motion, hands outstretched and ready, but she flew straight passed him without even a glance. She vaulted over the first of the lab benches and threw herself at the second, sliding along it until her hands met a silver briefcase that lay abandoned and still locked.

"Drop it." She turned her head slightly to look at him again as he stared over at her, arrow notched and bow tensed to fire. She held the case with both hands and made no move to release it despite his order. "I mean it. Drop it, or I'll drop you."

He never found out whether she would have done what he asked or continued to fight. Before he could even take a step towards her there was a shuffling of steps outside the lab door and something metallic was thrown inside. It clattered along the floor until it came to a halt between Clint and the Widow.

All hostilities momentarily forgotten they sprinted, side by side, to the window on the opposite side of the lab – throwing themselves through it as the laboratory exploded forcefully.

After a moment of free-fall they landed side by side on the roof of a car that had been parked just below the lab as rubble rained down on them.

Clint lay still for a moment, hands over his head to deflect falling debris, attempting to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him during the fall. She, on the other hand, sprung up almost immediately as if not bothered by the almost three story fall. She slid down the hood of the car and onto the street, limping slightly for only the first couple of steps, making her way to where the briefcase had fallen only a few feet away.

"You can't run forever." The words came out raspy and almost inaudible as Clint continued to fight to get his breath back. He struggled pull himself up and slid down to the hood of the car just as she had done. "It doesn't matter who you are, who trained you, or how strong you are. No one can run forever." He went on. "No one can survive alone."

She had paused when he spoke, but hadn't turned to face him, and she didn't now either. "I can." There was no pride or arrogance in the words. She truly believed them. If anything the statement was almost dejected.

Clint slid from the bonnet of the car to his feet but moved no further, instead remaining where he was, leant against the car. "You don't have to." He said, staring intently at her while she continued to stare at the case at her feet. "Come back with me. My organisation, it can protect you."

Her head tilted slightly in his direction as he spoke and silence fell for a few moments. "Why?" Was all she asked when she finally spoke, confusion breaking through her monotone.

"Because you know them, you trained with them." Clint explained, nodding towards the building they had just leapt from and the men inside. "They may not have had your skill, but they knew your moves." He clarified. "Stuff I've never even seen before. You must have been trained by the same people, and we need what you know about them." He didn't even bother to hide the truth of what S.H.I.L.D wanted from her. He had a feeling that she would know straight away if he lied to her. And the consequences would be dire.

There was another silence that lasted several, long, seconds but this time he was the one to break it. When he went on his voice was gentler than it had been before. Less demanding and more earnest, but still utterly honest.

"And not so long ago I was where you are, running, when someone offered me another chance." He thought back to how Phil had found him, the kind of man he had been and where he might have ended up without him, and kept going. "You left them – whoever they are – for a reason. You wanted something different. My organisation can give that too you." He offered moving a couple of steps towards her hesitantly. "Maybe even help you find whatever it is that you're running towards."

He was getting through. He was sure of it. Could see her indecision in the set of her shoulders and the mere fact that she had yet to just grab the case and take off.

He was getting to her.

Or so he thought.

Before he could say or do anything she spun to face him and a gunshot echoed around them. In the same moment a burning sensation spread across his lower side and he felt himself falling to the street, limbs unresponsive no matter how hard he tried to move them.

_Yep_, he thought sourly, as the world around him grew darker, _worst and last decision_. _Ever_.

* * *

><p>The shrill ringing of his cell phone broke Phil from his empty stare down at the file on his lap. He hadn't bean able concentrate long enough to read a single word for hours. "Coulson." He answered, rubbing his eyes.<p>

"You better sound like shit because I've just woken you up, not because you still haven't slept Phil." Fury's voice met his ear with all its usual directness, but Phil could hear the slight undertone of concern. "You got anything new"  
>"A migraine." Phil sighed.<p>

"Don't we all." Fury replied without a pause, sounding like he too could use some long overdue sleep himself. "Been able to verify anything your boy figured out yet?"

"You mean whether she's really defected?" Phil clarified, attempting to get his muddled thoughts to cooperate. "No. The second explosion wiped out everything inside the facility – bodies and all – so we're still searching." He reported. "But as far as we know the corpses had no kind of identification on their tac-suits."

Fury was silent for only a moment. "And your boy Phil, how's he doing?" He went on more softly.

Phil looked up to the infirmary bed barely a foot from him and at his worryingly pale agent that lay unmoving upon it, just as he had for the last three days. "His fever broke this morning so doctors are hopeful he'll wake up soon." Phil said, not taking his eyes off the young archer.

"They find out what it was that poisoned him?"

"No. They think it must have been the bullet. That she coated it in something, but they have no idea what. Apparently they couldn't isolate it in his blood so, we still have no clue." Phil sighed trying his best to keep his frustration from filtering into his voice. He had yelled for so long at the infirmary staff when they told him they had no idea why Clint was getting sicker that he had almost been forcibly removed. "But it looks like it's wearing off, not getting worse, so that's something at least." Phil doubted his frayed nerves would have been able to take much more bad news.

"Glad to hear it." Fury said. "Barton's one of the most stubborn bastards I've ever met Phil, he'll be fine."

"Yeah, I know." Phil agreed, his eyes still on Clint's bed-ridden form, nodding despite that Fury couldn't see him. "Thank you, sir."

"You keep up this 'sir' shit Coulson and he'll be the one sitting by _your_ hospital bed." Fury threatened, but the exasperated affection in his voice took any real bite from the words and brought a small grin to Phil's otherwise exhausted face. "Or worse, fourth floor cubical, because I've demoted your ass so far down the food chain that lunch-ladies will be giving you orders."

"Duly noted, sir."

Phil just caught the muttered, _bloody kid's wearing off on him_, before Fury disconnected the call. He slid the phone back into his pocket before finally closing the un-read file in his lap and standing to lean over Clint's cot to get a better look at him.

The bullet wound itself had been fairly superficial – burrowing shallowly in the lower left side of his abdomen without hitting anything major – and to be honest when Phil had found him he hadn't been all that worried. His agent was known to get worse paper-cuts than the shallow wound. Phil had merely credited the kid's unconsciousness to the fall from the third story and far too little rest over the last few weeks. He should have known better.

Clint never did any injury half way.

It wasn't until Phil was riding with him in the med-evac on the way to the Berlin base that he noticed the fever that was growing, and later when the med-team unwrapped the wound that they found the black discolouration to the veins surrounding it. That had been when Phil's fear really set in. He hadn't left the infirmary since.

In the days that followed Clint had only gotten worse. His fever had risen to dangerous levels and the discolouration to his veins had only spread, but none of the doctors had been able to find a single trace of poison. No trace of anything at all.

It had been infuriating.

And as if Clint's deteriorating condition hadn't been enough the teams that he had searching the entire city had yet to dig up a single thing on the Black Widow. She had fled the facility without a trace and the briefcase had yet to be dug up in the ruins so Phil was left with no assumption but that she somehow managed to grab it.

He continued to lean against the infirmary cot for several minutes, taking in with relief the colour that was steadily returning to his agent's face, before running a hand through his own abused hair and turning to sit back down in his abandoned chair.

Half way down into the chair, however, a soft groan caught his attention and Phil's head snapped back to his agent.

"Clint?" He asked, springing back up to beside his cot with more energy than he knew he had. "Clint can you hear me?"

"-_son of a-_" The words were garbled and barely comprehensible but something.

"Clint." Phil put on his best 'boss voice', as Clint called it. "Open your eyes."

Clint's eyes twitched before one inched open slightly, taking in the room around him. "Phil?"

"Yeah, it's okay." Phil assured him, placing a restraining hand on his shoulder as he attempted to sit up. "Just relax. You're a little banged up, but you're going to be fine now."

Clint's brow furrowed as he blinked several times in order clear his head. "Now?" He asked, confused.

"It was touch and go for a little while." Phil admitted while Clint got his bearings, glancing around the room and scowling when he realized he was in the infirmary.

That scowl only grew when a realization dawned on him.

"She shot me." Clint said, his voice much clearer. "She _shot_ me." He repeated, furious, as he sat up despite Phil's restraining hand. "That bitch." He hissed, "Please tell me you have her."

"No. And we don't have any leads either." Phil said, feeling just as frustration as Clint currently looked. "She got the case." He added after a moment.

"I know." Clint sighed as he pushed himself up further on the bed. Phil straightened up from his position leaning over the cot so that the kid could swing his legs over the edge and test his weight on them. Countless arguments over the years about Clint taking it easy after an injury had taught Phil that he had to wait until Clint collapsed on his own before he would follow any sort of medical advice. The best thing for Phil to do was stay close enough to catch him when that inevitably happened.

Which, going by the flicker of pain that passed through Clint's face as he leant against the bed, was not far off.

"What?" Phil asked at once. Clint wasn't the kind to show pain – in fact he found the idea of sharing one's suffering almost personally insulting – so Phil knew something must be very off. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Clint assured him. "It just…feels strange."

"Painful?" Phil pressed only to have the archer look over at him condescendingly.  
>"It's a bullet wound, Phil," He pointed out. "It's painful." He shook his head for a moment before continuing. "But usually its like a stabbing pain, this one…it kinda burns."<p>

"That would probably be from the poison." Phil said only for Clint's eyes to flash up to his in alarm. "You were poisoned." Phil added, realizing that he hadn't mentioned that yet.

"By what?" Clint asked heatedly. Phil merely shook his head and let the frustration that had been building up in his chest since he first asked the same question shine through. Clint huffed. "Seriously, this assignment Phil…"

"I know." Phil said – the entire mission had been one answerless question after another. "Hopefully they'll get her and we'll get some answers."

Clint's jaw flexed. "_They'll_ get her?" He asked slowly.

"You and I are booked on a flight back to the New York base tonight-" Phil began, his voice leaving no room for argument.

So naturally Clint ignored every word he said.

"What?" He argued at once. "No. We're not done-"

"You were shot, poisoned and have been unconscious for three days." Phil told him evenly. This was not a topic that was up for discussion. "You're _done_, Clint."

"I was getting to her, Phil." He said earnestly. "I was getting through to her."

"Right up until she shot you?" He asked, his voice becoming condescending now. Clint had the sense scowl at the truth in Phil's words but said nothing. Clearly he wasn't backing down that easily. Phil tried a more gentle approach. "She doesn't want your help." He said solemnly, before adding, "Besides, the woman _shot_ you, you shouldn't even want to help."

"I tried to shoot you when we first met." Clint reminded him with a small grin.

"The significant word there being 'tried'." Phil pointed out.

"So what?" Clint's grin grew. "If I'd hit you, you would have left me for dead?"

"Damn straight."

The kid laughed outright, wincing slightly as the motion jostled his wound. "You're all heart Overwatch."

There was a silence between them as all humour faded away and Clint's expression fell.

"She doesn't want your help." Phil said again. "And even if by some miracle she did, you can't honestly say that you would be up for it." The archer said nothing – which in Clint's language was as close to an agreement as Phil knew he would get. "Sometimes you got to know when to walk away kid."

"Yeah." Clint said despondently. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

* * *

><p>"So he's fine." Phil clarified one last time.<p>

He had stayed with Clint until his agent fell asleep once more and then set about gathering the latest information on his condition now that he was awake and functioning.

"Yes, Agent Coulson." The doctor nodded slowly, "Technically he's fine."

"_Technically_?" Phil repeated irritably. "You'll have to forgive me if that's not very comforting. Is it even safe for him to be transported?"

"Yes. We think so." The doctor said, again not sounding very ensuring. "But you have to understand Agent Coulson that we still have no idea why he _wasn't_ fine to begin with. We've sent samples of his blood to specialists at the New York base to have them further examined but we haven't received any definitive results yet."

"So what do you know?" Phil asked, pinching the bridge of his nose to keep him from exploding at the man in front of him. He was just so damn _tired_ of having every single medical professional he approached tell him they had nothing.

If he ever gets his hands on Natalia Romanova, he's going to throttle her.

"We know that the discolouration to his veins is fading and that his vitals are returning to normal." The doctor assured. "We also know that his wound is actually healing at an incredible rate – we think that might be a side-effect of his prolonged fever – and that there doesn't appear to be any brain damage due to it."

"So basically we're assuming that he's fine because he looks fine." Phil concluded.

"At this point – with nothing else to go on – it's all we can do." The doctor said before continuing much more eagerly. "But if you would let us keep him here for a little longer-"

"No." Phil ordered. "If he's fine enough to go back to New York then we're leaving tonight. Like you said there are specialists there."

"Agent this poison could be incredibly valuable. It had practically healed his wounds. If you let us take more samples and experiment with-"

At that Phil finally snapped.

He seized the man by the collar of his lab coat and pulled him closer so that when Phil spoke even, and with enough malice to render the man terrified, no one else could overhear.

"I don't care how _valuable_," He spat, "This poison could potentially be. My agent is not going to be your lab rat. He is going back to New York _tonight_ where there are doctors who will actually treat him rather than hope that whatever nearly killed him gets them a promotion."

The doctor had enough sense to say nothing more. He nodded vigorously at every word Phil hissed and then fled the corridor the moment he was released from Phil's grip.

The doctor had no sooner fled from sight than another voice called out to him. "Agent Coulson?" Phil turned, half expecting to find a terrified medical intern, only to see Clint's nurse down the hall looking less than pleased.

She didn't need to say anything more. Her irritation said it all.

"He's gone, isn't he?"

* * *

><p>Clint was getting really sick of ruins.<p>

He had spent hours looking at the ruins of the Consulate and now he had been wandering around what was left of the lab facility that had been blown to pieces for almost as long.

He was just about to give up and head back to the wraith of Phil when he felt it – the tingling sensation in the back of neck.

He pivoted, notching an arrow as he did, so that when he came face to face with her he was once again staring at the Black Widow along the length of a drawn bow.

"How did you know I would come back?"

Her voice held the slightest amount of surprise, but going by what Clint had seen of her emotional range so far she might as well have fainted in astonishment.

"Because I may not know you, but I _do_ know you're not stupid." He said keeping his bow raised as he walked slowly towards where she stood beside a half collapse pillar. "Whatever it is that's coming for you, you can't handle it alone. So despite how royally pissed off I am with you right now, I thought I would give you one last chance. And I am serious about the last part." His voice darkened. He paused leaving around eight feet between them, the perfect firing distance. He was so done with her shit. "Either you walk out of her with me, or you leave in a body bag. Is that clear?"

She didn't answer. Instead she looked him up and down slowly, taking him in, eyes lingering on his side where she had shot him.

"You look okay."

"No thanks to you, yeah, I'm feeling much better." He snapped, rightfully angry, and ready to dish out a whole new level of sarcasm and unpleasantness that he saved for people who shoot him until he finally noticed her appearance. "You on the other hand – at risk of sounding like a hypocrite – look like shit." The bags around her eyes rivalled even his despite that he hadn't slept soundly in months. There was also a paleness to her skin that hadn't been there the last time he saw her. And the slightest blue taint to her lips that left her looking even worse than he did. "Rough few days?" He asked, keeping his voice easy. In all honesty she actually looked like she might keel over at any second, and he couldn't deny that it was a little disconcerting. "Look, you came back here because you know I'm right. You need help. And judging by your prickly personality there probably isn't a long list of people who are willing to help you-"

"-Actually," She cut him off slowly, her eyes focusing on something directly behind him just as the tingling sensation in Clint's neck returned in full force. "I came back to for her."

* * *

><p>So all hasn't been revelled YET, but it will be. Don't worry Nat's going to start co-operating soon enough. She wouldn't be our fiery-haired assassin if she didn't put up a fight first.<p>

In regards to the next chapter, there are fights to the death, some impressive bowman ship from Clint, and a plot twist that neither of our favourite assassins is expecting…

What did you think? How was the fight sequence? I haven't written one before so you'll have to tell me how it worked out. I wanted for Clint to really take in Natasha fighting style because, to him, it's all new. He's never seen anyone move like that.

As I said updates are going to come much more regularly now. The next chapter will be up in the next few days.

Please review and tell me what you thought? What can be improved? Like I said I'm new to this and any pointers would be very welcome!


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